Odyssey
by Yarrie - Water Master
Summary: AU. Occupational hazard is nothing new to Shizuo. That's a very good thing, because his latest patient is like nothing else he's ever had to deal with. Shizaya. Steadily in progress.
1. Chapter 1

A very different writing style than my other works - mostly because this story is _not _from Izaya's point of view. What a surprise, huh?

Oh, by the way? This is going to be one, long, epic story. Why? Because I'm suicidal.

* * *

ODYSSEY

* * *

"Shizuo…"

"Shizuo…"

"Shizuo, are you listening to me?" The short answer was No, and Shinra knew it. He lifted his glasses away from his face with one hand and pinched his nose with the other. Stubborn strands of dark hair whipped from side to side, proof that he had not been sleeping as regularly as he could have been. A thin wet line appeared on his forehead when he furrowed his eyebrows and sweat gathered into the folds of skin.

Shinra's companion folded his arms and draped himself over the sofa like he owned it, though he made sure that the 'real' owner of said sofa was looking away first. They made quite a pair, two heads of black hair bobbing up and down.

"Not my fault," Shizuo grunted half-defensively, opening and closing cages until he found the one that he was looking for.

"I know that you're not in a very good mood right now," the doctor said patiently, "but could you stop ignoring me for five minutes, at least? I need to talk to you about something important."

"More important than what I'm doing right now?"

"Of course. It's about work, you know."

"I don't need any advice." Actually, he probably did, but Shinra's idea of advice usually veered on the wrong side of the law. Shizuo had enough trouble with the government as it was.

"That's debatable, but I'm not here to argue about that today." Shinra stared at his longtime friend despairingly before waving his hand in a useless gesture in front of the other black-haired man. "This is Izaya. He's your new client."

"Then he should bring his pet over."

"No, no, not that kind of client." Shinra sighed again for a minute or so, showing off an impressive lung capacity. "The kind of client that you _treat_."

Shizuo glared full force at the stranger taking up space on his couch, oblivious to Shinra's long-winded explanations in the background. He could already feel the beginnings of a very long hate affair taking root. Besides the fact that the young man had long black hair, eerily reminiscent of the mad scientist upstairs, Shinra's tagalong had one major character flaw that automatically landed him on Shizuo's blacklist.

"He's _human_," Shizuo said flatly, patting a sphinx dry after soaking its stump of an arm in disinfectant. "I don't treat humans."

Shinra sighed a very long, tired sigh. "It's alright, Izaya," he offered reassuringly to his companion. "Shizuo-kun doesn't mean any disrespect." The slender young man who was curled up on the couch next to him simply turned his gaze to the blond in a deadpan sort of way. He could have easily passed for a woman – a rather pretty if shapeless one – but there was something wrong with that idea. Shizuo trusted his instincts, and his instincts were screaming 'Male!' at the top of their metaphysical lungs.

There was dead silence in the wake of Shinra's declaration. Shizuo couldn't resist the urge to scoff derisively.

'Izaya' looked at Shizuo skeptically, like a wolf sniffing out a new pack member – and promptly turned his face away.

Shizuo felt insulted, but there was an injured creature in his arms. But he felt insulted. But there was an injured creature in his arms. But…damn it. He laid the sphinx down and started strangling the man on the couch without a care in the world.

Izaya's eyes flashed from burgundy to sharp, derisive crimson, but he showed no signs of distress. His cold, dispassionate stare was a more effective counterattack than all the force in the world. No matter how much the Shizuo's grip tightened around that smooth, pale neck, the other man didn't seem to care. Eventually, tiny blood vessels near the surface popped, unable to withstand the pressure. The blood pooled into ugly purple splotches that vanished as soon as Shizuo released his hands. It was like the period of healing had been compressed into a few seconds, turning Izaya's bruises from purple to gray to green in a heartbeat before the colors faded away to nothingness.

"Fuck," Shizuo breathed. "He really _isn't_ human."

"Have you been listening to me at all?" bemoaned Shinra, who didn't raise a finger to stop them.

"No." Honesty was always the best policy.

The doctor dropped his face into his hands. "That's what I thought."

Shizuo eyed the creature in his apartment warily. Izaya didn't even return the favor, apparently preferring to spend his time playing with a loose thread on the couch. From the disjointed conversation that followed, he gleaned very little useful information, probably because he was paying more attention to Izaya's meaningless fidgeting.

Shizuo had never been the best conversationalist, but it still wasn't like him to ignore one of his few friends for the sake of observing a newcomer, especially such a bland, uninteresting one. There was nothing spectacular about him. Literally nothing. Shizuo was disconcerted by his failure to realize that Izaya wasn't human. Most magical creatures could put on airs of normalcy with hypnosis and illusion if they needed to blend in, but this went well beyond that. Izaya had _human_ features. In another age and time, his red eyes would have been a deal-breaker, but the popularity of contacts worked to his advantage. He had an average build, slightly on the slender side – but not so much that people would notice. The small hands and feet of faerie types were conspicuously lacking. Even his fingernails were flat with blunt edges, instead of pointed. He wasn't especially beautiful, either.

Most of Shizuo's patients – the ones who looked vaguely humanlike, anyway – were absolutely breathtaking in a way that wasn't quite natural. Sometimes, that was their only redeeming characteristic.

Needless to say, Izaya did not fit that mold.

"Shizuo, are you listening to me?" Shinra only managed to get his friend's attention after he stood up and blocked Izaya from view.

"What?" Shizuo blinked.

Shinra sucked in a deep breath and sighed for the umpteenth time. "Shizuo, I think you might have a mild case of OCD brought on by the excessive stress and paranoia of your life."

"...the fuck?"

"Never mind. I'm going to try to make this as simple as I can, okay? Okay." Shinra nodded to himself without waiting for Shizuo's reply. "Izaya-kun is a _siren_. He's _also_ mute."

"He's a _siren_?"

"And mute sirens are no good. That's where you come in."

"He's a fucking _siren_?"

"Oh, good, you listened this time!" Shizuo twitched slightly. Shinra wisely refrained from saying anything more.

"Why the hell are you bringing him to _me_?"

"Because," the underground doctor explained patiently, "sirens are still magical creatures. I might be legally authorized to treat them, but that would be a really bad idea. You can imagine."

"So?" Shizuo looked warily at the long-haired man – no, creature – in front of him and swore internally. He was fighting a losing battle. He always was when Shinra got involved.

"So you should do it."

"Hell no. Leave your crazy ideas out of my business."

"You owe me," Shinra wheedled childishly, "Because of what happened last year, remember?"

"Damn it," he hissed, "You promised not to bring that up again!"

"Well, there was a change of plans. I'm sorry."

Shizuo snarled.

His friend read the mood of the conversation and backed off slightly. "Anyways, all you have to do is figure out what's wrong with him and give him back when you're done, alright?"

"Fine." The sooner he dealt with this, the better. If it had been anyone else, _anyone _but Shinra, he would have refused off the bat. Damn that doctor. Damn that doctor's usefulness. Shizuo was far from stupid, but he lacked the finesse to navigate between the surface world and the underground, which left him with no choice but to pick one or the other and stay with it. Years ago, people might have praised him for being so straightforward. Not anymore. It was practically shameful for a grown man to live such an honest life, but Shizuo couldn't care less. Being on the run all the time just wasn't his cup of tea. Unfortunately for him, his less scrupulous friends had absolutely no qualms about dragging him into _their_ messes.

This was obviously one of them.

Shinra smiled brilliantly. "Great! So I'll just leave him here for you, okay?"

"Wait." In his building rage, the blond man unwittingly broke the lock on the sphinx's cage. It poked its one remaining front paw through the bars curiously, drawing back in surprise when the door pushed open. Shizuo didn't notice. "You're going to _leave_ him here?"

"Isn't that obvious? You can't fix him over the telephone."

He stared – first at Shinra, then at the black-haired siren. The latter looked perfectly unconcerned about what was going on around him.

Images of heavy metal objects began to dance around in Shizuo's head.

Almost as if he could read the blond man's mind, Shinra stood up and made to leave as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, leaving Izaya to bear the brunt of Shizuo's temper.

And oh, what a temper it was.

Shizuo marched straight up to the couch and stared Izaya down. A general aura of death and destruction fell over the room, suffocatingly thick. Every muscle in his body was poised and tense, like a lion on the prowl eying its prey like it was the most worthless thing in the world. "You. Shinra called you Izaya, right."

It wasn't a question. The siren glanced at him through the long bangs and nodded uninterestedly.

Shizuo pointed to one of the cages. "You'll be staying in here. Go. Now."

This time, Izaya turned to him with a cold, aristocratic smile and shook his head slowly. Shizuo promptly grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and started dragging him towards the pen. Izaya hissed out loud and caught the carpet with his hands, holding on tightly. The sudden pressure on the shirt jerked it out of Shizuo's hands.

They both ignored the sound of scratching in the distance.

Shizuo cursed and made a move to grab Izaya again. The slender man jumped out of the way and swung himself over the row of plastic boxes, jarring the animals underneath. A faint chorus of protesting cries followed his movements. Izaya raced all the way to the end of the row, stopping short at the edge. The cages underneath him teetered back and forth precariously, but his eyes were completely fixed on Shizuo.

The blond man pulled a chair over his shoulder without breaking eye contact. Then he swung it overhead, hitting the spot where Izaya had been resting. The impact sent shockwaves through the walls and floor. Tiny cracks formed on the white plaster, prompting the siren to run away as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Thoroughly shaken by the miniature earthquake, the sphinx finally fell out of its cage and onto the floor, clumsily spreading out like a glob of gel. A_ wailing_ glob of gel. Shizuo was so drunk with rage that it took several minutes to finally notice the injured animal's plight. He scooped it up with practiced skill, allowing Izaya the time to slip away to other parts of the building.

"_You fucking bastard!_"

* * *

Yagiri was laughing. "And then?"

"Shut up," he hissed. "You want someone to blame, go blame Shinra."

The woman touched her smiling strawberry pink lips thoughtfully before shaking her head. "No, I don't mind. Your little siren is very interesting. He would probably survive very well in the gutter."

"_Wonderful_," Shizuo growled. "Now where is he?"

"In my bathtub," she replied.

"Why the hell is he in your bathtub?" He tried not to breath in the heavy scent of antiseptics that saturated her apartment.

"Sirens like water, don't they?"

"What's he doing in there?"

Yagiri just shrugged. "He locked the door. How do you expect _me_ to know?"

"You have security cameras," Shizuo reminded her impatiently.

She sighed before moving to let him in. "This is why I hate dealing with people like you. You should learn some manners before you talk to a lady."

Shizuo highly doubted that Yagiri Namie could be considered a lady. She walked briskly, half-dressed, into a spacious living room blanketed with white. It resembled a hospital – no, a morgue – in both appearance and ambience. He felt nauseous.

No doubt Izaya was having the time of his life here, voice or no voice. The environment suited him just fine. Not so for his current caretaker. Just going within twenty feet of the madwoman was like scratching a chalkboard. Shizuo swore to never to let the siren out of his sight again.

After inspecting her nails like a preening teenager, Yagiri broke the silence. "Why don't you like him?"

"I just don't."

"That doesn't sound right," she objected. "You like animals. Izaya is, for all intents and purposes, an animal. Why the hate?"

"He's not like the others." Shizuo struggled to organize his thoughts and opinions into something fit for a scientist to hear. It was practically second nature by now. He didn't know anyone else who was willing to dissect an argument word by word until it fell apart completely, and hopefully, he never would. "I mean, he's not good enough to be."

Yagiri gave him a skeptical look, clearly waiting for a better explanation.

Shizuo took a deep breath, like a professor getting ready to lecture hundreds of ignorant students on something that came naturally to him. "Animals are better than humans will ever be. They won't backstab you. They won't steal from you – unless they're completely famished. They're always honest, and–"

"Cut it out. You won't go anywhere with that kind of thinking."

"You wanted an explanation."

"Are you telling me that you decided your career path because of some hocus pocus about animal superiority?"

"Not exactly," he admitted reluctantly. "I deal with them because they're easy to deal with."

"Then why are you struggling with Izaya?"

"He's not normal."

"So-o?" Yagiri turned around and crossed her arms. "I don't think it's possible to be a healthy siren without a few quirks here and there. If you don't like it, then that's your problem, not Izaya's. There's nothing wrong with him."

"There is, and I'm going to prove it."

"How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"I'll figure it out."

"And if you don't?"

Shizuo was more than a little fed up with the interrogation. "I want the security tapes."

Yagiri gave him a look so sharp he could feel it gouging through his chest.

He cracked his knuckles.

"Fine." She took out a remote and aimed it at the hallway wall. A projector dropped down from the ceiling, showing at least sixteen different perspectives of the apartment. "You owe me for this."

Shizuo ignored her in favor of searching for long black hair and red eyes. "Where?"

"Over here," Yagiri informed him, pointing to a hyper saturated screen in the very corner.

Izaya was just barely visible in the corner, lying at the bottom of a tub full of water. The only spot of color came from his clothes. After a few minutes of watching, there was still no change in the picture, not even the tiniest ripple to show that the room's occupant was alive. Yagiri looked completely unconcerned about the fact that her guest could be drowning. Shizuo felt the same way, but with the added complication that he wasn't just a stranger. A sense of obligation, to Shinra if not to Izaya himself, won out. "What the hell is he doing?"

"Taking a bath," she replied patiently.

"_Face down_?"

"That seems to be his preference, yes."

Shizuo's mood quickly darkened from minorly pissed off to majorly pissed off. Personal feelings aside, the siren's wellbeing was still his responsibility. Yagiri had no right to interfere with that. She had no right to interfere, period. If Izaya deserved to be flayed on a barbecue, Shizuo would do the honors himself…right after solving the problem of his muteness.

"If you're so worried, the bathroom is at the end of the hall to your left."

The blonde man shot her a positively poisonous look before running.

The end of the hall…easier said than done. Yagiri's apartment consisted of a long, thin corridor with smaller rooms to either side. It had obviously been built with her slender frame in mind. Shizuo, on the other hand, had to turn his body sideways to get through. He passed the unpleasant journey with his nose right against the wall. It smelled like embalming fluid.

By the time he reached the door, his temper was rapidly descending from bad to worse. "IZAYA!" he barked, pounding on the door. "Get out of there!"

A loud, startled splashing sound replied.

Shizuo figured that he had given Izaya enough time to get a towel, so he twisted the knob and threw the door back. A slush of clear water poured over the threshold. The siren was sitting upright in the middle of the bathtub, wet clothes literally plastered to his skin. A tiny hint of red colored the water, probably from the reflection of his shirt. Tiny air pockets in his clothing bubbled up and popped when he splashed his hands down in a gesture of displeasure.

The blond man paused in the doorway for the fraction of a second.

On the surface, Izaya looked the same as always. Long black hair fanned out over the surface of the water. The black and mahogany clothes hung on his body, dripping water everywhere. His eyes were red and full of contempt. Yes, he looked the same, but there was something different about him. Shizuo struggled to pinpoint exactly what it was.

Eventually, he gave up. Maybe he would think about it again after a cigarette. Shizuo grabbed Izaya by the shoulder and lifted him up effortlessly. Then he unceremoniously dropped the shorter man onto the ground. Izaya gave him the most unaffected look he had ever seen on anyone, supernatural or not, before turning away to press the wrinkles out of his soaked shirt. Shizuo eyed him cautiously, trying to look without looking. It was more difficult than it should have been. Izaya's shirt slid up, flipping over at the edge and revealing long stretches of slick skin. Watching the show made Shizuo feel sick and dirty.

Logically, it wasn't his fault. Izaya looked so human, _so human._ Shizuo was sorely tempted to treat him like one, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Sirens – most of them, anyway – couldn't possibly sink as low as a human could. It wouldn't do any good to think otherwise, so Shizuo didn't even try, but Izaya…Izaya wasn't average. Without his voice, he was barely even a siren. He was perfectly situated on the borderline of Shizuo's comfort zone - much to the animal handler's chagrin.

Of course, that's when he finally figured out why the whole situation was so unnerving.

Izaya's androgyny disappeared when his hair was wet and sticking to skin. That is – well – his gender was actually obvious.

"You _are_ a guy." Awkward shock turned to awkward amazement. Awkward amazement turned to awkward suspicion. "Why do you wear your hair like _that_?"

Izaya didn't reply. Shizuo quickly realized that he _couldn't_. Upset by the momentary lapse of his sanity, the blonde grabbed him by the arm and pulled them both out of the water-logged room. The siren struggled to keep up with Shizuo's longer stride, eventually digging his heels in to protest. Water dripped from every wet corner of his clothing.

Shizuo just kept dragging his unwanted patient along, making the very confused siren stumble straight into him.

"The hell are you doing?" he barked at Izaya, ticking like a bomb. The siren gave him an expressionless stare and eyed the hand on his arm pointedly. Shizuo snorted. "Idiot! If I let go, you're just going to run again!"

Izaya seemed to visibly deflate.

"Shut up," the taller man muttered – rather uselessly, at that. His grip loosened, but only because of the impossibly narrow hallway. Water seeped up from the bathroom door into the corridor, but since Yagiri wasn't there to see, Shizuo didn't bother to deal with it. Honestly, it was _her_ fault for entertaining a siren in her own home…

Izaya didn't seem to have any problems with navigating the hallway, unlike his companion. After hiding in various tight spaces for the last two days, he was probably used to the imminent claustrophobia. The same couldn't be said for Shizuo, who preferred to have enough room to walk without having to wedge his elbows into the tiny nooks and corners. The siren swung the long strands of hair out of his face and started tugging on the blonde man's sleeve. The feathery black tips just barely dusted Shizuo's hands.

Shizuo turned to glare at him and ran into a pillar.

Izaya laughed. Not a single sound came out of his mouth.

* * *

"Breath _deeper_, damn it!"

Izaya wrinkled his nose but complied reluctantly.

When Shizuo moved closer with his stethoscope, Izaya didn't comply at all. He twisted out of range and gazed coldly at the offending hand.

"Stop squirming," the blond ordered half-heartedly, knowing that he was going to be ignored. "Your vocal cords are fine. Your lungs are fine, too. What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

No reply, not that it was possible to get one out of the siren at this point. Izaya crossed his arms like a petulant child and looked at Shizuo with mixed contempt and discouragement. The animal handler grunted, completely unaffected. It was troublesome trying to diagnose a magical creature without using the right medical equipment, but getting ahold of the latest and greatest was _Shinra_'s specialty, and the underground doctor had a talent for making things worse, not better. Shizuo would rather take his chances with what he had.

He pulled out a bottle of alcohol and applied it liberally over Izaya's arm. The not-quite-human man shivered slightly, looking very uncomfortable with either the touch, the chemical, or both.

Shizuo kept one eye on him to make sure that he wouldn't run.

Izaya smiled at him disarmingly, as if to persuade the blonde man that he was perfectly harmless and obedient. Shizuo was not fooled. Not in the least. On the other hand, as long as the guy wasn't running around…he didn't really have anything to complain about.

There were piles and piles of medicine in the back cabinets, arranged in a marginally chaotic way. It only took a minute to find what he was looking for. Shizuo drew translucent fluid into a needle, trying to take a rough guess of how much tranquilizer he would need for someone like Izaya. He was bound to be off by a milligram or so – but this kind of medication wouldn't kill anyone. Probably. On the other hand, water dwellers were known for being sensitive to chemicals...Just to be on the safe side, Shizuo decided to check with Shinra on the phone. Not because he was actually concerned. Oh, no, far from it.

It would be convenient to know, that was all.

Shinra took a distressingly long time to answer. The ringing sound finally faded into a soft "Hello?"

"What kind of tranquilizer am I supposed to use on him?" Shizuo didn't bother with greetings. This wasn't a social call.

The other doctor was completely silent for a few seconds. He eventually choked out, "Tranquilizer?"

"Yeah." Shizuo fidgeted impatiently, wondering how long the phone would last in his grip. He decided to put it on speaker. Of course, that wouldn't help if he uprooted the entire desk, but hopefully Shinra wouldn't be stupid enough to get him that pissed off.

"Shizuo, are you _sure_ that you need to have him tranquilized?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Wouldn't tying him up work just as well?" The doctor made a high-pitched pleading sound. "He can be a little annoying, but don't you think tranquilizing him is overreacting?"

"I need a tissue sample. Like hell I'm doing that without tranqs."

"Oh!" Shinra sounded relieved. "Is that all?"

"What do you mean, is that _all_? Give me a fucking answer!"

"A small dose of Thiopental should do the trick," he chirped. "Four milligrams at the most. Sirens are pretty delicate creatures."

Shizuo made a very skeptical sound with the back of his throat. "Right."

"Now, now. Don't be like that. They _are_ pretty delicate. It's been scientifically proven, over and over again. They can't help being so high-maintenance."

Shizuo made an even more skeptical sound. "Right."

"It's true. Izaya-kun likes you!"

"He tried to kill me. Twice."

A pause. "That's just the way he shows his love."

Shizuo hung up. Actually, he smashed his hand onto the phone by accident and ended up with tiny plastic pieces everywhere. "Fuck!"

Izaya didn't even look up from his thorough investigation of the cotton swabs.

Shizuo swore again, just as violently as before. He was still muttering obscenities twenty minutes later, with his fingers tightly wrapped around the needle plunger. Since his patient's attention was fixed on some distant point on the counter, Shizuo found little resistance when he grabbed the siren's arm. Compared to a human, Izaya's skin was nearly white, exposing a fragile network of veins and arteries to the naked eye. Shizuo stared at the limb in his hand disbelievingly, just waiting for an explosion that didn't come.

Five minutes passed.

He awkwardly turned Izaya's forearm over, feeling more than a little dumbfounded by the non-reaction. This was _Izaya_ – frenetic, jumpy Izaya. What the hell happened? And why the hell was he waiting for an answer to that question? This was the chance of a lifetime. Quickly, he flipped the needle into an upright position over one of the thin purple lines on Izaya's painfully pale skin. The siren's arm felt almost metallic to touch. It was smooth, unnaturally so, and barely as warm as room temperature. Just like a doll. Or a corpse.

In hindsight, Shizuo should have expected what happened next. As soon as the cold metal tip pushed into his pulsing vein, Izaya leapt back three feet, crashing straight into the wall. The dry, white surface exploded inward, throwing up a large cloud of dust. It swamped the entire room, barely giving Shizuo enough time to throw his arm over his eyes. Disoriented but undaunted, Izaya struggled to his feet and ran.

"Shit!" The blond man threw the needle aside and chased after the wayward siren, not even bothering to dodge the heavy furniture that had been upset by Izaya's journey.

How could such a skinny worm run so fast? There was a good five feet gap between Izaya and his pursuer, enough to propel him all over the apartment at lightning speed without ever letting Shizuo close enough to touch. The blonde man was in a race that he was quickly losing.

Thoroughly pissed off, he took hold of one of the doors and wrenched it out.

"_Get over here!_" His voice echoed through the entire building.

Izaya turned around for the briefest of moments, his eyes bulging slightly. He looked like most of Shizuo's previous victims, completely and totally unprepared. Unfortunately, he was not like Shizuo's previous victims. He fought back.

Tooth and nail.

Literally.

For every punch that actually landed on Izaya's body, Shizuo received at least three or four scratches. They appeared everywhere, even behind his ears – courtesy of a few well-placed blows to the back of his head. Pitted against an opponent whose strength far overwhelmed his own, Izaya took full advantage of his greater speed. The siren's feet just barely dragged on the floor, spinning with his fingertips extended. One hand hit Shizuo's neck and dug in like a shovel. If the nails had been sharper, there would have been a chunk missing from the blonde man's jugular.

Thankfully or unthankfully, Izaya's hands were long, lean, and normal. It didn't even bruise. Shizuo slammed his fist straight into the wall, missing his target by mere centimeters. In a blur of color, Izaya fled to the top of the bookcase. He glared at Shizuo from the corner of his eye. Black pupils contracted until the enormous expanse of his red irises took over, giving him the look of a wild animal. The color was especially striking compared to his ashen skin.

There was a short pause as they stared at each other warily. Finally, Shizuo began to walk toward the bookcase as slowly as possible, clenching and unclenching his fists. Izaya looked at him and tilted his head. Strands of black hair dropped from behind his shoulder. The farther he leaned over, the more the wooden shelves creaked in protest.

Shizuo put his hand on the oak bookcase and ripped it away from the wall. Medical texts old and new clattered to the floor all at once. Izaya was gone again, scrambling around the pile and throwing random objects at Shizuo's head – books, for the most part, with a few added extras that had been lying around for decoration.

Scratch that. A _lot_ of added extras.

When a beautiful antique globe smashed against his head, Shizuo was almost thrown against the wall. He braced his knees, grimacing. Liquid dripped into his eye, making his vision blurry. When he looked up again, he saw Izaya standing on the pile of books with a rubber band in his hand.

Shizuo opened his mouth but couldn't make it past the first word. Something bright and translucent flew at his face and lodged itself in his throat. Izaya fled.

The blond man doubled over, turning almost purple with oxygen loss. He went through the motions of coughing, but the flow of air up his trachea couldn't push past the foreign object. His lungs alternated between sagging and tightening.

It wasn't coming out.

Fuck.

Shizuo grabbed the closest chair and slammed it deep into his gut. There was a brief pause followed by the unmistakable popping sound of two ribs cracking – but nothing happened to the tiny marble lodged in his throat. He released the chair and hauled himself over the cast-iron banister instead.

The small glass piece shot out of his mouth and shattered on the hardwood floor. Shizuo took a deep breath in and out, immeasurably relieved about his most recent brush with death.

Apparently, Izaya had a creative streak.

Shizuo wanted to throw him out the window and stomp on him a few times. Maybe more than a few times. The tall blond man stretched his arms out, testing the damage to his ribcage, but the pain was bearable. A thorough medical examination could wait until morning when Shinra came over for his customary breakfast visit. For now, Shizuo was going to treat his injury with plenty of adrenaline.

"You slimy little brat!" he roared as loudly as he could without cracking his ribs even more.

Silence greeted him, unsurprisingly. Shizuo scanned the kitchen for any sign of black hair and white skin, even going so far as to check behind the jars in the pantry. He made threats of bodily harm – even though they wouldn't have any effect – and stormed through the few remaining hiding spots in the apartment with all the force of a tornado.

As expected, nothing.

He even checked the _refrigerator_.

For the first time since the arrival of his unwanted houseguest, Shizuo's nearly supernatural ability to sense annoying things failed him. Where could the bastard possibly be? Not the bathrooms, not the kitchen, not the bedroom, not the closet, not even the storage room where the other overnight patients stayed.

Two places left: the dining room and the laundry room. Shizuo had no idea why a siren would be interested in either.

The dryer.

It was literally the last place he checked.

There was a slender young man curled up inside, dark lashes drooping and pale lips pouty.

"Get the fuck out."

The siren shook his head, almost disapprovingly. Shizuo wondered how someone who was silent all the time could possibly make him this pissed off. It was a special talent, to be sure.

He ripped the dryer out and shook it.

With a half-muffled cry, the siren inside was tossed out into a boneless, possibly brainless heap on the tile floor. He was twisted into an awkward angle that forced his face into the ground, so Shizuo took hold of both ankles and started dragging him out. "What the hell were you thinking? That's the _dryer_, you fuckwit."

Izaya turned around with impossible dexterity and shot another marble at the taller man's neck.

"Fuck!" Shizuo whipped around, forgetting that he was holding the siren's legs. The young man on the floor yelped and slid around in a circle. When he finally stopped moving, his dark red eyes glared up at Shizuo accusingly.

They were face to face. Izaya opened his hand, revealing another marble. Flick!

"_God damn it!_"

Shizuo held a hand over his left eye, swinging unsteadily on his feet. The sudden pressure had knocked him back a few feet, but he was prepared to retaliate this time. He swung his fist back and -

"What's going on?"

Both Shizuo and Izaya swerved to stare at the sudden intruder.

Long before he was expected to be there, Shinra grimaced under the combined power of their death glares. He took one step forward as if to join them, but never quite made it past the threshold. To make up for the lack of physical proximity, he spoke loudly and clearly across the room. "What on earth are you doing?"

Shizuo gave his old friend a moderately pissed off look. "This is all your fault."

Shinra ignored him. "Izaya-kun, are you trying to kill him again?"

The siren raised his head very slowly, somehow maintaining eye contact with two people at the same time. His face was completely blank.

The underground doctor sighed.

"Why the hell are you here?" Shizuo let go of Izaya's neck and made his way over to the door. He had a good height advantage over Shinra, but it wasn't very effective as a scare tactic. They knew each other too well.

"You won't win Izaya-kun over like that," Shinra informed him matter-of-factly. "You have to be nice."

"Bullshit."

Shinra looked mildly affronted.

Shizuo didn't really care.

After an awkward silence, the doctor just sighed and beckoned the blond man to come outside with him. They crossed the hallway, just out of Izaya's sight. Shizuo paused just long enough to lock the door, wary of what would happen if he let the siren run free. Shinra shook his head fondly as he went down the stairway at a brisk tempo.

Shizuo followed him like a dog chasing after its wayward owner. It was not a good feeling. "Where are you taking me?"

"To talk," Shinra replied brightly.

"I asked _where_."

"Anywhere, really. As long as it's out of Izaya-kun's earshot."

"Great." Shizuo rubbed his foreheard wearily. Spending so much time with such a…lively patient was beginning to take its toll on what little remained of his self-control. Just a few minutes away from the mess and chaos was already doing wonders.

And Shinra noticed. "How's Izaya-kun doing?"

"We're getting nowhere," the blond man growled. "I still haven't figured out what's wrong with him."

A nod. "Of course. How's his neck?"

"His _neck?_"

"His neck." Shinra made a few vigorous gestures with his hands. "You know."

"No, I don't. What's wrong with his neck?" Shizuo sped up slightly so that he was walking side by side with his friend.

An incredulous look crossed the underground doctor's face. "You don't know?" He actually stopped mid-step, whipping around and grasping the taller man by the shoulder with a peculiar sense of urgency. "Didn't you check him over?"

"He wouldn't stay still," Shizuo retorted, wondering why he sounded so defensive.

Shinra opened and closed his mouth several times without making a sound. Then he lifted his hands to his face and groaned. "Shizuo-kun, you're utterly hopeless."

"What?"

"Izaya-kun had several inches of skin cut away from the back of his neck," Shinra reported with a frown. "In the shape of gills."

"Gills?" Shizuo stared. "Why?"

The good doctor grimaced and turned away. "It's believed in certain circles that sirens with gills are given special abilities. Of course, adding gills isn't quite as simple as cutting flaps in the skin, but–"

"That's completely and utterly preposterous!" Shizuo hissed. "Magical creatures don't work like that!"

"It's not _completely_ preposterous. There have been cases – undocumented, of course – of paraplegic humans going under the knife to remove their lower extremities. The useless limbs are discarded, and other animals – usually horses – donate the rest."

"Like a centaur." Shizuo didn't know what was more disgusting, the idea that humans would willingly do that to themselves, or the idea that humans would do that to another animal's body.

"That's the point. In some cases, they have to breed special horses for compatibility with human anatomy. And it works. The patients adapt well after the surgery – provided that they receive physical therapy. Lots of it."

Shizuo opened and closed his mouth wordlessly.

"You don't believe me."

"No. Why the _hell_ would anyone do that?"

"Because it's tolerated by the law. Rather popular option, actually." Shinra spoke quickly, as if to cover up his distaste with as much professionalism as he could muster. "Look, if you had a choice between staying in a wheelchair for the rest of your life and becoming half-horse, which would you choose?"

"Idiot." Shizuo stood against the railway, back stiff. "I would've found another way."

"…Of course."

A cigarette worked its way into the blond man's mouth. "How do you know about the gills?"

"There were pictures from his, ah, previous doctor." Shinra's eyes glazed over slightly. "Medically, very interesting. Morally, very vexing."

"Show them to me," Shizuo ordered him in a no-nonsense kind of voice.

"Maybe later." A shift in the shadows. "First, you should take a good look at him."

Shizuo couldn't argue with that logic, no matter how badly he wanted to.

His friend lifted himself from the brick wall, clearly satisfied with the bombshell he had just dropped on Shizuo's head. "Let's get back," he said cheerfully. "I'm sure Izaya's probably looking for food."

"_And_ for ways to kill me."

"Well," Shinra practically gave off sunbeams with his smile, "What else did you expect?"

Shizuo caught the doctor by the throat and dragged him the entire way back, completely forgetting to ask why his longtime colleague came over for a visit in the first place.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

This story is...going to take a while to finish. Just...just putting it out there.  


* * *

Chapter 2  


* * *

"I can't believe you," Shinra hissed, cheeks painted a livid red color. "You were injured and _you didn't ask me for help_?"

Shizuo grimaced and felt the bandages around his ribs wearily. "Didn't hurt that much."

"Fragments of your ribs could have broken off and pierced your lungs," the doctor informed him, strapping on more segments of cloth with quick, precise movements.

Well, wasn't that wonderful to know. Shizuo suppressed the harsh comeback on the tip of his tongue by remembering the pain. His chest still ached from yelling at Izaya – and the adrenaline rush was fading. Some dying part of him hoped that staying silent would rob Shinra of the excuse to keep talking.

It was a futile hope.

"You could have punctured your heart, even. Or put bone splinters through your diaphragm. Or ripped through your chest cavity." Shinra stopped moving briefly, just to give the blonde man a scolding look. "Perhaps you shouldn't try so hard to kill yourself."

Shizuo snorted disbelievingly.

"Don't give me that attitude." Shinra wagged his index finger. "I'm a doctor. I should know."

"So am I. It doesn't help."

"Technically, you don't have a license to practice anymore."

Shizuo stiffened.

Shinra looked up. "Is it too soon to talk about it?"

"Yes," the blonde man hissed. There was something ugly in his eyes. His pupils contracted into tiny pin-points, nestled against a sea of murky brown.

"Shizuo." Shinra's mouth was pulled into a long, disapproving string. "You should get over it."

"It was _your_ fault."

"Well, maybe, but you got caught. I didn't."

Shizuo promptly flipped the bed over in his eagerness to get at Shinra's throat and shake some sense into him. The latter sighed a sigh of long-suffering and moved backwards to escape Shizuo's arms. Outstretched fingers just barely brushed against his collar before falling backwards. Shinra tsked.

His friend slammed into the toppled bedframe with a resounding crash. "Shut up," he heaved.

"That temper of yours is going to get you killed – or at the very least, severely mutilated," Shinra commented. "Sit down. You're going to make your ribs worse."

The blonde shrugged his makeshift bandages off. They came off in a swirl of white. Something cracked when he flexed, but it didn't hurt as much as before.

Shinra suddenly appeared in front of him and shoved him on the forehead. "Sit _down_. Didn't you hear me?"

"Get off," he ordered quietly.

Shinra ignored him pointedly. "Geez, you're touchy."

He struggled to form an apology, a sincere if half-hearted attempt. Shinra was his friend, but sometimes it was hard to remember that. It was even harder to act on it. He had a lot of bad habits; paranoia was one of them.

Luckily enough, Shinra seemed to understand. "Don't worry about it. Worrying gives you wrinkles."

"Just…don't mention it again."

"I won't." An awkward pause followed. The doctor watched Shizuo rearrange the fallen pieces of furniture. Then he coughed purposefully, which in no way dissipated the aura of awkwardness. "I don't suppose you have coffee."

"Coffee?" Shizuo repeated blankly. His brain went on a loop and processed the query several times before comprehension dawned. "No. Not ready."

"Well, do you have something to _make_ it ready?" Shinra asked patiently.

"There's a coffee pot in the birdcage in the kitchen."

"It's in a birdcage? Don't answer that."

Shizuo answered anyway. "It was left over from another client."

That got him a raised eyebrow. "The birdcage or the coffee pot?"

"The birdcage."

"That can't be sanitary," Shinra sighed. He stood up and dusted his hands off. "Oh well."

"You've seen worse," Shizuo grumbled.

"True, true. I'll just wash this with a bit of tap water and hope the bleach kills off most of the bird pathogens."

"I haven't used the cage for an actual bird in years," Shizuo retorted, "and phoenixes don't have pathogens."

"It was a phoenix cage? Should have said so from the start. No wonder you leave your coffee pot in there."

"The heating charm still works," Shizuo explained, just to have something to say. The pain was almost gone. He tested out his ribcage by taking deep gulps of air and letting them out. It was a blissful lack of sensation compared to last night. Shinra's drugs really did work wonders. Shizuo couldn't complain about their effectiveness, just their legality.

Shinra smiled toothily. "I thought you didn't like using magic unless you had to."

"Coffee's a good enough reason."

"Ah. You have a point. Thanks to you, I've been up for," he glanced at the clock, "six and a half hours too long. We might even get to see the sunrise today."

"I see it plenty."

Shinra acknowledged it with a slight turn of his head. "Do you ever see it without coffee?"

"No," he replied, because he remembered every single goddamned time his job messed with his sleeping schedule, and couldn't even imagine dealing with it without a shot of espresso.

"Let's keep it that way," Shinra suggested, and Shizuo was more than happy to agree.

When the black-haired doctor swept out of the room and left him alone, Shizuo glanced at the other couch and nearly jumped at the sight of dark red eyes staring straight at him. "Fuck, you're awake."

The siren sat up and yawned, knocking off the thick wool blanket in the process.

Shizuo watched him like a hawk, not so much because he suspected that Izaya would get up to trouble – because he wouldn't, not with Shinra around – but because he needed to see everything that he had been missing. He was a professional, after all.

Izaya yawned again.

Shizuo was watching, and the siren probably knew it, so there was no chance of him turning around to stare back. Shizuo contented himself by watching the siren's mannerisms closely. The curtain of dark hair slipped, revealing dark red eyes that were focused entirely on some distant point on the wall.

Shizuo grimaced and wondered when his patient would stop pretending not to notice him.

Shinra ruined the moment by walking in and offering both of them a cup of poorly heated instant coffee. Shizuo nearly spat it out – but it was caffeine, and he needed it. "Thanks," he said, a little gruffly.

The caffeine kick was sharp and acrid. He tried not to breathe in through his nose.

Izaya, the inhuman little twit, refused to drink.

Shinra shrugged and said, "I'll take your share, then." He didn't sound terribly disappointed.

Shizuo pressed his hand to his forehead and wondered why he even bothered anymore. The sun hissed over the horizon like a ghost, illuminating the room bit by bit; he must have forgotten to close the blinds last night. There were a lot of things he had forgotten to do. Really, blinds were the least of his worries.

Shinra looked at him so expectantly that he finally growled out, "What?"

"Aren't you going to be a good host?"

Blink. "What?"

"It's morning, and I'm hungry," Shinra said, sounding incredibly patient and also incredibly pathetic. "Take pity on me and make some breakfast. I'm depriving myself of Celty's wonderful company so that I can bandage _you_ up. Aren't I a good friend?"

Shizuo stared at him blankly. "That wouldn't be a problem if you actually let her out of the house."

"Can't," Shinra replied, "New laws."

"Fuck the laws," Shizuo said.

"I wish I could, but that would take away my best employer."

"The government," he guessed.

"Of course." Shinra nodded fervently. "She's not exactly a legal resident."

"Don't you have friends in high places who can _make_ her a legal resident?"

"Well, that would require telling certain people that the Dullahan haven't gone extinct, and I'd rather not deal with that."

"They're going to find out sooner or later."

"I'd rather it be later, after Ryuugamine leaves office. Not that I have anything against the man, but his magical creature policy leaves _much_ to be desired." Shinra tsked again.

Shizuo wiped his mouth and grimaced. "Old news, Shinra."

"True," the other man replied, "but apparently we're the only people in the nation who think so."

Probably. The animal handler took another sip of his coffee. "I have work to do."

"Yes, you do, but you aren't doing any of it, so you might as well spend some time with your good friend Shinra."

"I'd rather be asleep."

Izaya sat back and made the sofa creak horribly, a jarring sound that left the others breathing just a little bit faster than before. Paranoia, of course. Shizuo's house had been free of intruders for years. No one was fool-hardy enough to barge into _his_ clinic. Admittedly, there weren't that many people who knew where his clinic was, either.

Shinra stood over Izaya and squinted at him. "How's the voice?"

The siren opened and closed his mouth.

"Ah."

Izaya raised a thin eyebrow and looked away, still pointedly ignoring Shizuo's gaze.

The blonde man gritted his teeth and kept staring. Izaya held his head very still until he suddenly flung his dark hair over his shoulder, giving Shizuo a perfect view of the siren's neck and collarbone. His skin was less translucent in broad daylight than it was at night. Shizuo found himself privately grateful, because it made Izaya look more alive. There were some men who appreciated the delicate, pale skinned types – maybe a little too much, if the black market was any indication – but Shizuo wasn't one of them. Who would want to live out the rest of their lives hand in hand with a porcelain doll?

He'd much rather wake up next to somebody who actually had an expression.

Ah. Shit. Where did _that_ come from?

Shizuo banished the thought to the deep recesses of his mind, and sucked in a deep breath. Count to ten, don't lose your temper.

When he glanced at Izaya again, the siren was looking back.

Shizuo blinked.

Izaya blinked.

One beat. Two.

What was that? Shizuo narrowed his eyes. There, behind the curtain of black hair…

Izaya's flat gaze never wavered, even as a few thick locks slipped from behind his ear and covered his left eye. Something about the otherwise picturesque scene was disturbing. Shizuo had the distinct feeling that his doom was being wished for.

Shinra cried, "Why is everyone ignoring me today? Where's the love?" and was rewarded when Shizuo smacked his head on the shelf while turning to face him. "Ooops."

"God damn," Shizuo muttered.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?"

"Yeah." He felt the top of his head gingerly.

"Here, let me see – "

"No, dammit, it's fine – "

"It's bleeding – "

"I don't feel anything – "

"Trust me, it is – "

"It's probably the light."

"No, no, you're definitely bleeding."

"There's nothing there, Shinra."

"Let me see."

"No, it's fine." He pressed his hand flat against the top of his head. "Really."

"Shizuo-kun, I'm a doctor._ Let me do my job_." Shinra's voice was soft to the ear but sharp enough to puncture steel.

Shizuo opened and closed his mouth noiselessly. Shinra cleanly sliced off another piece of cloth and dribbled cold water onto it. Then he wiped it over Shizuo's hair, soaking in faint traces of red.

"You should take better care of yourself."

"I'm not going to _die_ just because I hit my head on a shelf, Shinra. It's probably not even bleeding anymore."

"Right, but every time you hit your head, you kill brain cells. As your friend, it's my responsibility to make sure that you haven't retarded yourself."

"Wouldn't be so bad."

"Shizuo-kun!"

"What?"

"This is why," Shinra jabbed the empty space between Shizuo's eyes, "I worry about you!"

"Worry about yourself. I'm not going anywhere."

Shinra focused his wide black eyes on Shizuo's ribcage and uttered a faint, skeptical sound. "As a doctor, Shizuo-kun, you might've been able to convince me. As a friend, I still think that you're an idiot."

Shizuo had a comeback on the tip of his tongue, but then something exploded in his vision and he was forced to pay more attention to staying upright. The world became a hot ash volcano. He couldn't see past the dizzying spark of color to save his life.

Shinra said something, alarmed. Shizuo couldn't really hear it through the pounding in his temple, the deep roar in his ears. It hurt to keep his eyes open. More than a little unsettled, Shizuo opened his mouth and said something back, something like "Fuck, what did you do to me?" but he couldn't even hear himself.

The bandages around his chest were too tight. They stretched and choked him – and then, for no apparent reason, they relaxed. The suffocating air refused to go into his mouth. Somewhere between his throat and his teeth, he could feel a tight muscle clamping down firmly and refusing to open.

Every once in a while he could breathe. In. And. Out.

The numbness was gone, for a fleeting millisecond. Then the pressure would come back so hard and fast that it felt like a car was driving over his chest.

It hit him again – and something broke, he could feel the tattered edges in his mouth.

He looked up and saw something other than white. It was an improvement. Anything would be an improvement. The world returned to normal by degrees. Blurry colors turned into solid shapes.

He was facing the ceiling, not the wall. By the time he recognized the detail work on the lamp and worked out the geometry of everything, he was more or less conscious.

"The fuck?" he croaked hoarsely.

"Shizuo-kun!" Shinra's face was so close there was barely any breathing room. Shizuo would have shoved himself backwards, but the solid ground underneath him prevented that kind of mercy.

"What the hell happened? I couldn't _see_."

"Must've been the drugs," Shinra sighed. "Nasty side effects sometimes." Then he added, "You can let go of Izaya-kun now."

He did, too stunned at the sudden realization that he had been gripping the siren's arm like it was a lifeline to notice what Shinra was actually saying. "Fuck," he swore.

Izaya skirted away like a skittish colt, his eyes round and accusatory. He clutched his newly freed arm protectively. The tips of his fingers were purple.

Shizuo bit down on the strange feeling that he had done something very, very wrong. He forced his eyes to move back to Shinra. "What the fuck."

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing," Shinra retorted. "You just passed out, as you've probably realized."

"How long?"

"You were out for maybe fifteen minutes. I was just about to call the hospital, too." Shinra huffed. "I swear. You are going to give me heart problems."

"The fuck," he repeated blankly.

"Never say I didn't tell you so."

"I've never passed out like that before," Shizuo snapped. "And what – why was – what the hell was _he_ doing?" He pointed at Izaya with an accusatory finger.

"Giving you CPR," Shinra said patiently. "Without the rescue breaths, of course."

"CPR," Shizuo repeated numbly.

"Right. I trained him on the spot. Hope you don't mind. He was a wonderful help, weren't you, Izaya-kun?"

The look on the siren's face roughly translated to 'Go die in a bushfire.' He was still holding his arm close.

Shizuo felt the oddest sense of camaraderie with him. Misery did love its company.

Shinra was still talking. "I think that the medication is probably interfering with something in your blood. How many vaccines did they pump into you?"

"Fourteen this year," he recited, indifferently. "Thirty-two total, not counting the double-shots."

"God knows what it could be, then. Your body is seriously screwed up."

"You're not helping with that," Shizuo muttered.

"You're not helping either," Shinra pointed out, much too merrily.

"That's different." It suddenly occurred to Shizuo that it was a weekday, and he had a business to run. The realization was probably fueled by the sound of scratching and growling from the storage room.

Shinra glanced at the door and shrugged. "Do you need to work?"

"Yes," he replied. "So leave."

"But I _can't_ go," Shinra replied patiently.

"Why _not_?"

"You haven't made me breakfast yet."

* * *

Three hours later, Shinra was still pleading and groaning for food. Shizuo was pointedly ignoring him. Izaya had vanished into the kitchen some time ago, but he wasn't too worried about that. There was only so much damage the siren could do on an empty stomach in a room full of inedible processed food. Shizuo had never felt so glad that his daily diet consisted of ramen and powdered milk.

On the other hand, Shinra was _not_ glad at all. "You probably haven't had any Vitamin C in ages," the haggard doctor muttered.

"If you've got such a problem with it, do something about it."

Of course, that was a bit much to ask, considering that Shinra didn't know how to cook. It shut him up, obviously.

He watched Shizuo work in relative silence after that.

The sphinx was healing up. Shizuo pulled lightly on the stub of its right forelimb, satisfied that the skin seemed to be holding together nicely. Not for the first time, he wondered how many limbs the sphinx had lost in the course of its lifetime, only to regrow them again and again. Must have been painful. He ran his thumb through its tawny fur.

"That's _some_ regeneration ability," Shinra commented admiringly, after a moment. "What's his name?"

"Its," he corrected. "_Its_ name."

"_His_," Shinra repeated stubbornly. "Sphinxes have a biological gender. Like cats, you know."

"Does a cat pose riddles to people and tear them apart if they get it wrong?"

"I don't see your point."

"My point is," he wrapped the bandages up again, "you can't compare cats and sphinxes just because they look alike."

"But gender is gender."

"No, not when they can't even breed."

"That's like saying a prepubescent kid doesn't have a gender. And what about sterile people?"

Shizuo snorted. "Irrelevant. The entire _species_ is sterile. What's the point in splitting them into males and females?"

"Sirens are sterile, too, so why do you call Izaya-kun a _he_?"

Shizuo stopped short. "That's different." Honestly, it was. Izaya as a dainty little female was difficult to imagine. Logically, he knew that there was no point in pretending that Izaya could relate to a human issue like _gender, _but there were some things about his job that he could never get used to - and the universal pronoun 'it' was one of them. Oh, sure, he could manage just fine with a sphinx, but that was only because sphinxes didn't resemble humans at all.

"Is it?" Shinra gave him a peculiar smile, jerking him out of his thoughts.

Shizuo glared at his colleague venomously. "Kida."

"Pardon?"

"His name is Kida."

"Cute," Shinra commented. "After the owner's son?"

Shizuo snorted. "Yeah. His _dead_ son."

"Ah. Sorry. Not so cute."

Kida's golden head lifted, as if in agreement. Shizuo smirked slightly and brushed the sphinx's ear. "Any other questions?"

"How did he lose his right arm?"

"Forelimb," Shizuo corrected, "and I didn't want to ask."

Shinra's mouth formed an 'o' shape. "The owner?"

"Probably." He held his heavy hand over the sphinx's eyes and scratched absently. His voice was coated with lethal anger.

"Oh."

"This isn't the first time."

"Did you write a report?"

"Of course, not that it's going to do much good," Shizuo snorted. "I'll be lucky if they sent the paper to the right department. Fucking bureaucracy."

"I could kill him off for you," Shinra offered, completely serious.

Shizuo gave him a potent look of frustration. "No thanks. I'd rather not get sent to jail for something I didn't do. _Again_."

"Suit yourself."

"I will." He lifted the sphinx away from the table and carried him back to the cage. Then he fumbled for the right key to close the padlock.

"Do you have any other patients to take care of?" Shinra asked peevishly, bouncing up and down on his heels.

"Yes," Shizuo replied shortly. "The harpies."

"And then?"

"The kappas."

"And then? Will you be done?"

Shizuo gave him an aggravated sigh. "What's with you?"

"I'm hungry," Shinra replied, lethargically. "Very. So very hungry."

Shizuo shook his head at the doctor's childish antics. He really should have known. "Fine. I'll make some breakfast."

Shinra whooped.

"But it's going to be ramen."

Shinra stopped whooping. "You don't even have cereal?" he cried pathetically.

He shook his head wearily. "Ran out yesterday – and it's not like there's a convenience store around here."

"This is depressing," Shinra said.

"You get used to it."

"But I'm a doctor."

"Well, so am I."

Wisely, Shinra chose not to reply to that. Instead, he asked, "Do you get proper food for your patients, at least?"

"Of course," Shizuo snapped, because he wouldn't be _alive_ if he didn't. Some of the animals in his care were dangerously carnivorous, and not entirely adverse to human flesh. The salamanders, for example. Or the kappas. There was a reason he spent so much of his revenue on padlocks and cages.

"Then," Shinra said, pressing his finger to Shizuo's shoulder insistently, "Do you have tuna?"

"Tuna?" Shizuo raised his eyebrow. "Why the hell would I have tuna?"

"For Izaya, of course."

Oh. Shizuo thought. And thought. And thought.

"You don't, do you?" Shinra asked, exasperated.

"Look," he replied, "I didn't know that I had to have tuna – "

"Well, what else do you suppose sirens eat?" Shinra looked baffled. "They don't like domesticated meat – really, they can't eat anything that feeds on grain – so it's either sea animals or starvation."

"So they like…fish. And squid. And octopus."

"Well," Shinra blinked, "you probably don't want to buy any octopus. They're a real pain for storage."

Not really. Shizuo grimaced at the thought of those slimy, slippery tentacles. Blech. It was bad enough with the kappas. "I'll pass."

"The fish has to be very fresh." Shinra touched one finger to his lips thoughtfully. "You might want to buy a tank and stow some live fish in there."

"You want me to buy a fucking aquarium…?"

"It's more like I want you to stay unharmed and uneaten."

His stomach churned. "Do sirens eat humans?"

"It hasn't happened before, but I don't think you should underestimate desperation. Really, they're more likely to kill you and make a break for the ocean."

"Right." Shizuo cleared his throat. "So, tuna."

"It can't be farmed tuna, either," Shinra said.

Great. Fucking wonderful. "Well, how am _I_ supposed to tell the difference?" Shizuo dreaded hearing the answer.

"You can't. Just bring Izaya with you next time you go grocery shopping."

"No." Shizuo shook his head emphatically. "Absolutely not."

"Okay," Shinra replied, "Just don't blame me if you lose an arm."

"God damn it," he swore.

"It's okay, Shizuo-kun. I'm sure he'll behave in public."

Somehow, Shizuo doubted that very, very much.

Shinra tapped his foot. "Speaking of food…"

"Right, right. Breakfast." He cleaned his hands in the basin of crystal-clear lemon water. Then he dumped it into the drain closest to the kitchen. "Let's go."

"Finally," Shinra sighed.

"Freeloader," Shizuo muttered, but without any real heat.

"You can't blame me for feeling hungry," Shinra pointed out.

"Huh," he replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "You could've gone home."

"But what would be the fun in that?"

Shizuo muttered some unsavory things under his breath.

Shinra blinked. "I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that."

Shizuo muttered it again, laying his hand on the door of the kitchen. It was strangely peaceful. He put his ear against the crack between the door and the doorframe.

His colleague stifled a laugh. "Trust me, Izaya-kun's perfectly capable of making a mess without making a sound. That's not going to help."

"Shut up, Shinra," he said, before twisting the doorknob and facing – a perfectly immaculate kitchen.

They blinked together.

Then Shinra walked forward, turned 360 degrees, and asked, "Where's Izaya-kun?"

God damn it. Déjà vu.

* * *

In hindsight, it could have been a lot worse.

…

Maybe.

Shizuo's fingers itched for a cigarette. They also itched for a club. Or a gun. Or anything thick enough to smack some sense into Izaya.

He _would_ find a way to do it, even if he needed a fucking train.

Shinra looked to his left, at a very upset Shizuo who had clearly been having a bad day. There was a vein popping in his temple, and his hands were white from how tightly he had been clenching them.

Shinra looked to his right, at a very upset Izaya who had also been having a bad day. He showed it primarily by baring his teeth – his starch white teeth, jagged canines and all. His arms were folded petulantly.

Shinra looked at himself, at the very human bones in his body, and wisely decided to hightail it out of there. Thankfully, neither Shizuo nor Izaya noticed him leaving. It would appear that they were much too preoccupied with imagining creative deaths for each other.

In the corner of the room, Izaya began to roll a small pebble between his forefinger and thumb. Shizuo made sure not to open his mouth unnecessarily, not even to breathe. He still managed to mutter insults under his breath, though, which Izaya politely ignored.

He could not, however, ignore Shizuo forever.

When the tall man grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, Izaya had no choice but to acknowledge him – but even then, he only glared at Shizuo slightly.

"Why the fuck did you run?"

Izaya glanced at the small bucket behind him.

As soon as Shizuo got within five feet of it, the vague fishy smell made him gag.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he growled. "You almost got yourself killed over _that_?"

If sirens could roll their eyes, that would be exactly what Izaya was doing right now. Shizuo vaguely remembered reading somewhere that some domesticated breeds could be trained to fake human expression down to the finest details, but he hadn't been interested in finding out more about a species that would never fall under his care. Now, he cursed his own incuriosity.

"Why did you risk your life over a bucket of tuna?"

Izaya toyed with his side-bangs.

"I am _not_ going to take the blame for your shit! If you steal fish from the market again, I'm going to rip you to shreds!"

The siren plucked a single black strand and started to coil it around his finger boredly.

"Are you even listening to me?" Shizuo started to shake him. Izaya wobbled like a windchime in his hand. "I said, I'm going to TEAR YOU TO SHREDS!"

This time, when Izaya moved to play with his hair, Shizuo started rifling through the cabinets, looking for a pair of scissors. When Izaya saw the glittering blade, his eyes rounded and he began to kick violently.

Shizuo cursed when one of the siren's feet found its mark on his shin, but he didn't let go. "Sit down," he commanded roughly.

Izaya gave him an acidic look before delivering a solid blow to the blond man's stomach, just under his aching ribcage.

Shizuo gritted his teeth. "Mother-_fucker_."

He responded by dropping the siren into a chair, brandishing the scissors in Izaya's face, and chopping off entire sections of silky black hair. The siren struggled, but with the blade so close to his neck and his body pinned to the chair under Shizuo's arm, there wasn't a whole lot that he could do.

Thick blocks of hair fell to the ground. After the first few minutes, Izaya stopped moving, much to Shizuo's satisfaction. When he cleared away the long strands of hair covering the siren's neck, he paused just long enough to survey the pale, purplish marks lining Izaya's spine. They were like tiny puncture wounds. If he squinted, he could just barely make out the deeper tissue damage inside. When he laid his hand on the faint lines, Izaya _jumped_ and hissed.

He snatched his hand back before the scissors could cut into Izaya's skin. "What the _fuck_," he growled at his patient.

Izaya gave him a cold, chilly look before turning away.

Shizuo, wary of the siren's sudden reactions, quickly lopped off the last few pieces. Izaya was clinging to the chair, as if for dear life. His eyes were perfectly round, staring at the pruned edges of his own hair.

"The hell are you staring at?" Shizuo grabbed him by the shoulder and ousted him from the chair. "Go get yourself cleaned up."

Without a word, the siren pried Shizuo's fingers off and wandered to the bathroom, where he stared at the mirror in horror. His reflection stared back. Wisps of frayed black hair were sticking everywhere, framing a face that had gone a few shades paler than normal - if that was even possible.

* * *

Namie had the distinct feeling that something had gone wrong, and she didn't even know why.

At first glance, everything was absolutely normal. None of the samples were misplaced – she would have _noticed _that – and all of the machines were running briskly. She had plenty of work to do, probably far more than was healthy, which was just how she liked it.

It took nearly fifteen minutes, but Namie finally realized why it felt so different. She could hear the gentle hum of the machines as they went about their digital duties. She could hear the delicate clink of the test tubes. She could hear the gurgle of electric buffers as the current whistled across their surface. Why was it so quiet?

She was used to the sound of bustling and crashing from the clinic next door - but there was nothing, and had been nothing, for almost half an hour.

Namie was tempted to get up and eavesdrop, but there was no point in aggravating her neighbor any more than she already did on a daily basis. There was a thin line between having a risky sense of humor and having a _hazardous_ sense of humor, especially when it came to sensitive people like Heiwajima.

Ah. The thermometer was literally frozen in the center of the vial. "Damn, did I leave it in there too long?" She pulled, and the entire blood sample slid out like a popsicle.

After carefully slicing the frozen sample so that she could slide it under a microscope, she gave the cells a careful look. They were perfectly intact, despite the fact that she had dumped them in a freeze-thaw cycle. She pulled out a notepad and made precise annotations.

"Thermal protection…" Namie tapped her lip thoughtfully before writing, "Could be a side effect of the antibiotic?" She flipped the notepad to the blank front page and slid it into the file cabinet with a slight shake of her head. It was utterly, completely confounding. She hadn't expected anything less.

No wonder Shinra was so interested.

Sipping on a can of extra-caffeinated coffee, Namie pushed the notepad aside and played with the tiny vial of blood. "Do I have anything planned for tomorrow?"

She did. A new client. She returned the little glass container to its rightful spot in the freezer with more than a little reluctance.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry for the lateness...I've been sitting on a half completed chapter for a while. I've actually written a lot ahead, so expect faster updates now :)

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

There were three different types of terminal patients that every doctor dreaded. They were, in order of least to most frustrating: those who didn't want to die, those who did, and those who were already dead.

Shinra had, in his time, dealt with all three far too frequently. It came with the territory. He was an underground doctor; it was his duty to treat the rich and desperate. Neither adjective was complimentary as far as Shinra was concerned, but the combination of the two proved to be genuinely hazardous. Over the years he had been forced to reject a small country's worth of people who had come to him with incurable diseases and rotting bodies, hoping for a quick fix – or any kind of fix.

Similarly, there were only two different types of doctors: those who could deal with impossible patients, and those who couldn't. Shinra liked to believe that he belonged with the former, and he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Shizuo was one of the latter.

This did_ not_ mean that he thought any less of Shizuo's skill. No, he had only the highest respect for Shizuo as a doctor. But as a member of the medical society, Shizuo was...well...

It was safe to say that no one would ever refer a client to him if they could help it. Shinra was no exception. It had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with the man himself.

Shinra had been Shizuo's friend for five years, and his colleague for much longer, but he had always regarded the other man as some kind of reusable human bomb. Shizuo was just as likely to injure his patients as he was to heal them. He was temperamental, and fiercely opinionated, and violent.

And yet. And _yet_...

In a truly peculiar turn of events, Shinra found himself actually worried for Shizuo's wellbeing. It was disturbing. It was strange. It was...it was downright _weird_. Shinra couldn't even remember ever fretting over his friend's health – it was just something that he didn't do, because he didn't need to. But considering the circumstances of Izaya-kun's injuries, Shinra was starting to think that he had made a huge mistake in consulting his easily-angered colleague.

Why, of all people, did it have to be Izaya-kun?

At first, Shinra had been nothing but flattered when the Attorney General himself specifically recommended him for the job. He knew Tanaka well enough to understand that it was a statement of complete confidence and trust. Even though treating a siren – or any magical creature – was technically out of Shinra's field of practice, word had gotten around about his unofficial research on Dullahan physiology, a mostly unpublished collection of observations and notes that he kept in his library under lock and key. Every once in a while, when he wanted to cause a stir, he circulated a few pages around the underground community. He considered it his _magnum opus_.

Unfortunately, his reputation in research came at the price of his anonymity. Shinra firmly believed that there was no point in letting people know about his work unless they knew that it was _his_ work.

It was not just a matter of pride, although pride was certainly a factor. The Dullahan were supposed to be extinct. No one could run independent studies to confirm or disprove his findings, so the only proof of credibility he could offer was his own name. It would have been insulting to Celty if nobody believed his research, so he made it clear that anybody and everybody was welcome to come discuss it over tea, as long as they made an appointment and paid him for his time. The same courtesy was – somewhat reluctantly – extended to the government.

He had a lot of pride in his masterpiece. Of course he did. Celty was just so – _so_ _precious_! There was nothing in the world that he valued more. She was the best research subject ever, he was sure of it.

She was also part of the reason that it had been so easy to get him to cooperate with Izaya-kun's sponsor. Surrounded by a roomful of very important looking people, all of them strangely eager to praise his work on Dullahans, Shinra had been in the perfect position to be convinced. They wanted to get Izaya-kun medical treatment. He told them pointedly that he couldn't help them there, since he was only a specialist on humans and Dullahans and not much else.

Shiki-san assured him that he already knew that. And then, with a meaningful look, he asked, "How close are you to Dr. Heiwajima?"

Normally, Shinra would have kicked them out for trying to involve his old friend in something so shady, but...

But this time, this time was different. Despite his initial misgivings, Shinra ended up accepting the job, and it was all because of what he sensed in Tanaka's subordinates – fear. Genuine, raw fear. Not fear of reprisal, or fear of eavesdropping, but fear of the man who stood in their midst, calmly laying out the terms of Izaya's treatment. Shiki-san had that sort of effect on people. Shinra only capitulated because he knew that Shiki-san would've punished the Attorney General's men for giving him false expectations of Shinra's cooperation.

They were good people. Shinra would have felt terrible for bringing such a fate upon them.

Besides, he trusted Shizuo-kun to get out alive no matter what.

If he had known that Izaya-kun would turn out to be such a troublemaker, he would have reconsidered. The foolproof moral compass known as hindsight was not being very kind to him.

However, no matter how much he regretted the terms they had agreed to, Shinra was not stupid enough to cancel the contract now. Tanaka would have left Shinra alone and found somebody else to badger, but Shiki-san was a different story.

Honestly, Shinra should have known something was wrong with the whole arrangement when he saw that the section about patient confidentiality was over thirty pages long.

There were many suspiciously specific things that he was prohibited from talking about, but the most worrisome was Izaya-kun's placement in the House of Arcane Research. When Shinra tried to get ahold of the siren's records to see why Izaya-kun had been there at all, he couldn't even get past the front door without being escorted out by security. Two full scale office raids and sixteen phone calls later, even he had to concede defeat in front of the bureaucratic wall that separated him and Izaya's files.

It was Shiki-san who finally provided him with pictures of Izaya's surgery and the briefest of summaries about his medical history. Shinra didn't know why it was so important to keep Shizuo in the dark, but both Tanaka and Shiki-san insisted – and while the latter might have been motivated by paranoia, the former could generally be trusted to know what he was doing.

Izaya-kun, meanwhile, was still a stranger without a real past. Shinra had no idea if the siren even wanted to be fixed.

"What should I do?" he wondered, mostly to himself.

Celty glanced up questioningly. He could tell by the angle of her neck.

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking aloud."

She closed the book and laid it by her side.

Shinra rubbed his neck with a faint flush. "Could it be? Celty, you're worried about me?"

Moments later, a little piece of paper was thrust into his face. 'I'm worried that you're about to do something stupid,' was neatly printed at the top.

He sighed dramatically. "Ceeelty! If you aren't on my side, who is?"

'I don't know.' The Dullahan's long, delicate fingers wrote out the next line with absolutely no hesitation. Then she fell back to the couch opposite him and continued to read her book.

"So cruel...I am unloved...the world is so unkind..." Even though she had no eyes to roll at him, he could feel the sentiment practically radiating from her expressionless body. "I'm sorry that I'm not a better person, Celty," he said finally, looking and feeling rather pitiful.

'You're good enough,' she wrote, not unkindly.

"I hope so." Suddenly brightening, he began to rifle through his papers. "Ahhhh, why am I worrying about this? Today is supposed to be a good day! I don't even have work! Now, what should I do to make myself feel better?"

'Read?'

"I want something that'll actually make me feel better, Celty." At this point, he was willing to take anything as long as it didn't have to do with the incredibly illegal things dotting his to-do list. The act of reading reminded him of the background files on the Yellow Scarves that were waiting for him on his desk. He wanted to leaf through them before tomorrow. He _needed _to leaf through them before tomorrow. The Yellow Scarves weren't known for double-crossing their customers, but they were still young and reckless.

If they got caught by the police while carrying out Shinra's request, he had no doubt that they'd turn him in. Younger mercenaries were sort of unprofessional like that. Shinra had taken measures to protect his identity, but it was still risky because he had to meet the Yellow Scarves alone. If Celty found out, she would definitely tell Shizuo. The police didn't pose much of a threat to Shinra, but Shizuo would _kill_ him.

Shinra pondered the situation for a bit. Maybe he should let Shizuo deal with his own business this time?

…Nah.

What was the harm in meddling a little bit? If he managed to get rid of the sphinx's owner, Kida would be able to stay at the clinic and keep everyone safe – Shizuo, the patients, even Izaya. Shinra figured that it was a win-win situation all around, and thus worth the risk. He was a good friend, after all.

'What's wrong with reading?' Celty asked with annoyed, brisk pen strokes.

With violent appeasing gestures, he stammered, "W-well, nothing! Nothing's wrong with reading. But, you know, there's not much worth reading in the house...Father's books give me nightmares, and I'm so tired of seeing the gossip in the newspapers. And it's not like medical equipment catalogs make for enjoyable reading..."

'What's wrong with my novels?'

"...they're novels."

'…' she seemed annoyed.

"That is," he added hastily, "I could go through any of my case files and there'd be more drama and intrigue and plotting than you could ever find in a novel."

She was surprisingly patient in replying. 'Shinra, the point is that your life has too _much_ drama and intrigue and plotting.'

"Ah – perhaps you're right." He fell into a slightly depressed silence again. A sudden thought struck him as he glanced over at his companion. "Celty, don't you get tired of wearing the same thing over and over? I think it's time for a wardrobe makeover!"

'Pardon?'

"Since I'm not busy, we should go shopping! I've never taken you to the mall, have I?"

'Isn't that because I'm not supposed to exist?'

"Well - "

'Weren't you the one who warned me not to go in public without a disguise?"

"Well, that's easy enough. We _can_ disguise you."

No response. She was tilting her neck skeptically.

"All you really need is something to cover your head...but I suppose that wearing your helmet would look odd in a store? Hmm, what else could we..." he crossed the room and disappeared into his bedroom for a few suspenseful moments before appearing at the doorway triumphantly. "Hah! Look!"

She did.

"It's not a bad disguise, right?"

'That's a burglar mask, Shinra.'

"It's a ski mask! We can go at night so that you won't stand out too much."

'...because I'll look even more like a burglar?"

"Now, now," he replied scoldingly, "I'm sure no one will suspect _you_ of being a burglar. You're far too cute."

The silence behind him was all the reply he needed.

"Or...or perhaps we can go shopping on the Internet?" he asked hopefully.

'Internet?'

"Yes, perhaps a pink dress..."

'Shinra, I have to ride a motorcycle, you know...'

"Actually, no, you won't be able to do that until I can get you legalized. Which won't be for a while, fortunately!" His eyes were practically glowing at the thought. Oh, the outfits! Oh, the possibilities!

'Fortunately...?'

* * *

Shizuo lived alone, and thus, nobody ever greeted him at the door. This was to be expected. It was a fact of reality. Shizuo simply did not get greeted at the doorway, and the door was never bolted from the inside either, because he was the only one who lived there, and the door was broken more often than not...but that was another issue altogether.

Thus, having established these two very important facts, it should be quite clear why Shizuo was very, very confused when he came back from shopping for food and found himself in front of a closed, locked, bolted, and _guarded_ door.

"Let's play a game – what is my name?" came the gleeful sing-songy voice from beyond.

Shizuo stared blankly, and suspected that either he was hallucinating from lack of sleep (damned nocturnal species...) or Shinra was playing a practical joke on him.

"I won't let you in unless you win!" What. Was that a _giggle_?

"What the _hell?_" he said, gripping the bag of meat from the butcher's so tightly that the plastic lining started to rip.

"Let's play a game! What is my – "

Shizuo dropped the bag, reached forward, and ripped the door off its hinges.

The blond boy on the other side actually squeaked, and vanished in a puff of yellow. Shizuo threw the broken door after him, resulting in a yelp of pain as the little animal was crushed under its weight.

One second passed. He got up, pulled the door off of the unconscious but otherwise healthy sphinx. Then he took a deep breath. "_Shinra!_"

"Yes?" came the all-too-cheerful reply from the kitchen.

Holding the sphinx by the scuff of his – _its_ – neck in one hand, and the meat bag in the other, Shizuo stormed into the kitchen and let both drop to the floor. "What did you _do_?"

"I'm sorry," the doctor replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The sphinx is bound to my doorway!"

"Oh, dear. How did that happen?"

"Shinra," he hissed, getting far too close to the refrigerator for the other man's comfort.

Wincing, Shinra held up his hands. "Okay, okay, so yes, I did...but only because his contract sort of collapsed."

"How the hell is that even possible? He was only here for a week! It takes years of separation for a contract to spontaneously self-destruct!"

"Perhaps," he suggested slowly, "he was released from his duties by his owner?"

Shizuo snorted. "Why the hell would his owner release him? The guy's delusional and thinks that his pet sphinx is his son's _reincarnation_."

"Maybe..." Shinra's smile was just a little too sly for Shizuo's comfort, "somebody beat some sense into him?"

"What. Did. You. Do."

"Me?" Sweet, innocent blank look.

"Yes, you! I told you not to do anything stupid!"

"I didn't do anything, Shizuo-kun. Honestly." Shinra gave him a winning smile. "I've been booked with surgeries for the past week!"

"You liar. You're never booked. And how the hell would you be able to bother me so much if you were that busy?"

"Why, because I – unlike certain people – always make time for friends."

"...You weren't booked."

"Ask Celty if you want," he replied, earnestly.

Shizuo scowled suspiciously at the other man, but he had to admit that Celty was incredibly trustworthy, and if Shinra was willing to let him ask her... "Fine," he grumbled, shifting his attention to moving the meat to the refrigerator. He just didn't have the motivation to get upset. Some (not so) small part of him was glad that he didn't have to wait for the government to do something. Who knew how long it would have taken to get his patient out of that house?

Shinra breathed an internal sigh of relief. Disaster averted, for now. Then, tentatively, he stroked the sphinx's head, checking for blood. "I'm amazed that his leg is already back."

"My patients are magical creatures, did you forget?" Shizuo snapped.

Shinra winced. "Well, no, but - "

"Makes my job easy. Usually." Unless the patient was a siren who had become mute for no reason in particular, who didn't have a traceable medical history, who had such a clear violent streak that he would _never_ be certified cage-free, who was apparently cage-free in spite of it, who could not have been more annoying if he were a six year old kid being dragged away from the candy store...

"Have a little pride, Shizuo-kun," Shinra said sternly. "Your patients heal fast and heal well because you're a good doctor."

Shizuo gave an awkward half-shrug. "I guess."

"It's true. Don't you trust my judgment?"

He snorted.

"Perhaps that was the wrong word."

"Yes, it was," he said flatly.

"Okay. What about...professional opinion, then? Do you trust my professional opinion?"

"Sometimes," Shizuo admitted grudgingly.

"Well then, it's my professional opinion that your patients have benefitted from having you as a doctor. So! I think it's about time you learned to chin up and be proud of yourself."

"Don't care."

"Shizuo-kun, I'm just saying...being a doctor of any type is very admirable. People respect you."

"Easy for you to say," Shizuo muttered. "You've never had to spend the night in jail for shit that you didn't mean to do. Or shit that you didn't actually do."

Shinra pursed his lips but didn't respond to the obvious barb. Instead, he said, "I have a question for you, Shizuo-kun. No, no, rather...it's a question for Dr. Heiwajima."

"What?"

"Do you think," he murmured speculatively, "that, under the right circumstances, a dead magical creature could heal itself back to life?"

"Doubt it," Shizuo replied finally, after considering the question from every angle. To the best of his knowledge, controlled reincarnation was the closest any magical species could get to actually reviving themselves. He didn't ask the reason for Shinra's sudden curiosity. Sometimes it was just a random question, sometimes it wasn't, but it was never worth the effort trying to figure out which was which.

Shinra made a faint sound of disappointment. "I see."

Silence as Shizuo continued to unwrap the raw slabs of sheep, lamb, goat, and beef. No pork or poultry, of course. They were too bland and domesticated for his patients. "Why are you here," he asked sternly, "Shinra?"

The other man winced. "I suppose you won't believe that I just wanted to visit you..."

"No. You would've visited during a meal if that was the whole reason." Shizuo didn't consider himself the most observant person, but even he noticed obvious patterns like that.

Shinra glanced at the sphinx in his lap and took a deep breath. "How is – er, that is to say, is Izaya-kun still alive?"

A murderous glare took over Shizuo's face.

Shinra grimaced. "Okay." Well, with that reaction, Izaya-kun was most definitely still alive, even if he couldn't begin to imagine what had happened to make Shizuo so furious. Then again, wasn't Shizuo always furious...?

As if on cue, Izaya strolled into the kitchen, with a long blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a makeshift cape. It wrapped around his neck, but didn't quite hide the shortened edges of his black hair.

Shinra blinked. And stared. And then, tentatively, he asked, "Did you get a haircut, Izaya-kun?"

His words had the most curious effect. Not only did Izaya glare daggers at Shizuo, but Shizuo actually flinched. Then he glared back, and Izaya turned his face away, apparently to avoid looking at him. For a few minutes, they just took turns scowling at each other, batting around their animosity like a ball.

"Well," Shinra said blandly, "I'm glad that you're getting along."

* * *

Shizuo's bathroom was usually a spacious area with a single shower stall, a standalone faucet, and a large square of floor set aside in the center as his second bandaging station (the first was in the animal storage room, of course). The grout between the tiles was permanently stained with blood residue. Shizuo had never been comfortable with bringing patients to his personal rooms, but it was either the bathroom or the kitchen – and between the two it was obvious which one was preferable.

Besides, he rarely needed to use the room for cleaning up wounds. It was just a precautionary measure against his more carnivorous patients, who would spiral into a feeding frenzy at the sight and smell of blood. When they were around, it was safer to bring freshly wounded creatures to the bathroom to wrap their injuries. Shizuo was lucky that none of his most sensitive patients were with him right now, because there was no room left in his bathroom, what with the large inflatable kiddie pool that was planted right in the middle of it. That was where Izaya stayed.

Two days ago, Shizuo bought it at a garage sale on the way to the grocery store, partly because he had no bathtub for the siren to monopolize, and partly because he wanted to see the look on Izaya's face.

Disappointingly, Izaya had been perfectly unaffected when Shizuo plopped the deflated plastic pool in front of him and told him that it was his new bed. He was creepily emotionless about it, actually.

Shizuo felt like an idiot when he realized why: Izaya probably didn't even know what an inflatable pool was, so why would he react to the prospect of living in one?

Then he had to spend half an hour trying to teach Izaya how to blow air into the damn thing without biting the rubber stopper off. He eventually gave up, inflated the pool himself, and banged his head against the wall at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

And Izaya had been living in the kiddie pool ever since.

"I feel a bit like a stalker," Shinra said, rubbing his forehead to ward off the headache that he was sure would quickly follow. The two doctors were standing in front of the small bathroom window, looking through the ripped remains of the blinds that Shizuo had destroyed some time ago. They could clearly see Izaya drifting about in his pool. He had taken the blanket with him.

"You're the one who asked to see where he was living."

"I'm pretty sure that this is considered negligence, you know..."

"He's got water," Shizuo replied shortly. "Water and food and a place to stay. Hell, he's even got more privacy than I do."

"Begging your pardon," Shinra muttered, "But sirens aren't known for valuing privacy. They like...they like companionship."

"Right," Shizuo muttered, scowling at his patient.

Izaya was letting water drip through his fingers. He seemed to be a lot more relaxed than two days ago.

"Why did you put the pool in your bathroom? Isn't it weird to take showers with Izaya-kun there?"

"There wasn't enough floor in the animal storage room." Shizuo shrugged. "And I kick him out when I want a shower."

Shinra looked at them thoughtfully. "So nothing's happened yet?"

"...what do you mean?"

"I mean, he hasn't pounced on you yet?"

Shizuo snorted. "No, he's pounced plenty of times, but he's too light to do any damage. Why?"

The black-haired doctor stared at him and sighed heavily. "Shizuo-kun. Let me rephrase. He hasn't tried to seduce you?"

"What the _fuck_?"

"Well, you know."

He looked at Shinra with growing horror. "_No._"

"You don't? I thought it was common knowledge that sirens have, er, intimacy issues."

"No, I know that, I'm not _stupid_. I was just – god damn it, Shinra. I don't even want to think about..." The idea of being touched by Izaya was not so much disgusting as it was disturbing. He glanced at the siren, who was still stroking the surface of the water delicately with his pale fingers.

Fuck, he didn't need this.

Shinra poked him on the shoulder. "Shizuo-kun?"

"What?" he snapped.

His friend held up his hands appeasingly. "Woah, woah, touchy. I'm sorry, okay? It was just a question."

Silence. Then, Shizuo muttered, "He hasn't been eating, you know."

Shinra blinked. "Really? Nothing?"

"I told him to come with me to buy fish, but he didn't want to."

"Well, that could be for any number of reasons - "

"The point is that he's not eating, and sirens usually become hostile when they're hungry. This guy's just lethargic."

Shinra looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Have you done the biopsy yet?"

"No. He doesn't do needles, and he won't eat, so I can't sneak him drugs in his food."

"What about - "

"He's too fast for a stun gun. And he's so damn skinny that he slips right out of body restraints."

As if he sensed that they were talking about them, Izaya smirked and splashed a little, looking rather pleased with himself.

Shizuo growled. "And he's so fucking smug that I want to punch his slimy little face in."

"Please don't. That'd reflect badly on me. I have to return him in one piece."

"Don't blame me if that doesn't happen."

"Well...try your best to restrain yourself. This client is a very important person and I don't want to make him angry."

Shizuo narrowed his eyes. "You told me that Izaya _was_ the client."

"For you, yes. For me, no. I signed you on as a proxy."

"Who the hell gave you permission to do that?" Shizuo clenched his fists, glaring at Shinra suspiciously.

"Well, that depends on your definition of permission, I guess..."

"Shinra, if you're about to tell me that this is a government thing I'm going to rip you to shreds."

"It's not."

He gave his colleague a perplexed glare. "Then who?"

"Does it matter?" Shinra asked, peering at Shizuo with a faint, business-like smile. "You agreed to do it. Plus, I got you a good cut of the payment."

"Don't care about that."

"You should. It's a _lot _of money. You're welcome."

"Been doing fine without your help," he muttered.

"But you have to admit that I've made myself pretty useful lately."

The blonde man snorted derisively.

"Besides," his colleague continued patiently, with a twinkle in his eyes, "your reputation kind of precedes you. It's safer to negotiate with me than with you."

Shizuo growled, but there was nothing he could say to that.

Shinra was wise enough not to show his triumph at winning the argument. He opened the bathroom door and made his way over to Izaya's pool, only stopping when the siren began to inch back warily. "Hey, Izaya-kun, I'm just going to take a look at your throat, okay?"

Izaya gave him a look that said it was definitely not okay.

Shinra sighed. "How long has he been like this?"

"Like what?"

"Unwilling to let anybody touch him."

Shizuo snorted. "Ever since you brought him here."

A soft sigh. Shinra got up and squeezed water from the edge of his labcoat. "I'm going to get Celty. Maybe she'll have better luck."

* * *

If anyone asked Shizuo why he had given Izaya a haircut instead of beating him up, he wouldn't have known what to say.

It had been a stupid impulse. Shizuo didn't like being ignored, and Izaya spent way too much time twirling his goddamned hair instead of cooperating with Shizuo's attempts to fix him. Which wasn't really a reason, but...hell, why did he need a reason? He wasn't interested in any of that psychoanalysis shit; that was Shinra's thing.

Izaya's twitchiness only became worse after the whole hair-cutting incident. Shizuo felt oddly guilty about that.

The most annoying part about the aftermath was that every time he got within two feet of his fidgety patient, he ended up with a few new scratches and bite marks – not that Izaya had been the picture of cooperation before his new hairstyle. The injuries were always light and disappeared quickly, but after nearly losing an eye Shizuo decided to give the siren some space.

A long time ago, Shinra had given him a useful little scanner that detected fluctuations in body temperature and converted the data into a readout on a patient's vital signs. It was useless for Izaya, who didn't even register on the machine. To some extent, that made sense. Sirens couldn't regulate their own body temperature; the warmth of the Mediterranean meant that they usually didn't need to. It was entirely possible for Izaya to freeze to death if he spent too much time out of the sun, and Shizuo's office was in South side – hardly the subtropical climate that sirens thrived in.

Besides adding hot water every once in a while to keep the pool warm, there wasn't any way to solve the temperature problem without wrecking havoc on his electricity bills. Shizuo just didn't have the facilities to take care of a siren properly. It was just one more reason for him to hurry up and get Izaya out of there as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Shizuo couldn't even touch his patient without provoking a very violent response - which limited his ability to fix whatever was wrong.

There was nothing to do but wait for Izaya to let his guard down.

In the meantime, he did his best to take care of Izaya's basic needs, but it was difficult when Izaya didn't seem to _have _basic needs. It had been two days since the siren made off with that bucket of tuna, but he never even touched the fish inside. Two whole days, and he still showed no signs of hunger.

That was technically within the acceptable range for a siren. The low end of healthy, but still healthy.

From a medical perspective, what was more worrying was Izaya's behavior. He spent most of his time sitting on the floor of Shizuo's bathroom listlessly. Every once in a while he had a sudden burst of energy, pacing rapidly around the border of the room. Then he would fall into a stupor again.

And, of course, he never sang.

Shizuo had spent the last two days or so since Shinra's last visit buried in his books, searching for information on sirens. Mostly, he was trying to figure out what was 'normal' so that he'd be one step closer to finding what was wrong.

For a species that was so prominent and well-known to the public, there was surprisingly little information about sirens. The most promising sources were all in either Italian or Greek.

Shizuo wasn't about to learn a new language to deal with a patient that he hadn't wanted in the first place.

After coming across the same exact article on a typical siren's swimming technique in three different books, he threw all of the books out in a fit of rage – and decided to leave the rest of the research to Shinra.

Then he moved on to trying to figure out what to _do_ about Izaya. So far, he had eliminated lung damage as a possible diagnosis. From what he had seen, there wasn't anything wrong with the siren's vocal cords either. He was still suspicious about the supposed gills on Izaya's neck, but there was no way he could examine them properly until Izaya was more subdued.

He was also reluctantly considering the possibility that Izaya's problem was not strictly physical.

If it turned out to be a psychosomatic injury, Shizuo had no idea what he could possibly do. It would take a lot of trauma to force a siren to silence, and magical creatures who suffered that sort of thing usually committed suicide.

And if the cause of Izaya's muteness was magical, well, that was even worse.

Shizuo had been trained to administer all sorts of supernatural remedies, but he was very reluctant to use his knowledge except as a last resort.

Even for experienced doctors, healing magic was equal parts effective, expensive, and dangerous. Strictly speaking, it was possible to cure any ailment, including Izaya's, but the methods to do so ranged from simply risky to life threatening. Slave contracts, spiritual regurgitation, partial reincarnation…even body-switching. He hated the idea of resorting to something like that, but if magic caused Izaya's muteness, only magic would cure it.

* * *

Since Shinra was bringing Celty with him, Shizuo didn't expect them until after sunset, and he was right. It was eight by the time he heard the knock on his door. He stood up to open it, but a golden blur raced past him and practically pounced on the door, singing very loudly and discordantly, "Let's play a game - what's my name~?"

Shizuo had completely forgotten about the whole sphinx-door problem until now. He approached the boy and managed to hold his temper in until he heard Shinra laughing on the other side. This was definitely _not_ funny. He ripped the sphinx from the door with enough momentum that the already broken door simply fell in. It almost fell on him but he knocked it aside as he reached forward to grab the neck of Shinra's coat. "What the _hell _am I supposed to do with this?"

"With what?" Shinra asked, raising an eyebrow.

"This!" he jerked his thumb in the direction of the frantic sphinx who was trying to push his door back into place.

"Well, you've got a sphinx now, I think you might as well get used to it."

"I am _not_ keeping him!"

"Why not?" Shinra asked patiently.

"Because it's a fucking sphinx! I don't want to come home to find my clients dead at the door!"

"Then tell them what the password is beforehand."

Shizuo snorted and looked pointedly at the broken phone in the hallway.

Shinra followed his gaze and sighed. "Oh, Shizuo-kun. Do you have any other phones?"

"One in the basement, but that's not the point."

"You're right, the real problem is that you keep breaking them."

"No, the _real_ problem is that there's a sphinx attached to my door."

"Well, now that you mention it..." Shinra stared at the sphinx thoughtfully. "You're right, that could be an issue."

"_Could be_?"

Celty quickly laid a calming hand on Shizuo's shoulder. He glanced at her and took a deep breath. Shinra sighed in relief. "Yes, Shizuo-kun, could be. Is there any way to tell the sphinx to let friendly people through? That is, people who are friendly to you?"

"No," he snapped, "friendliness is too subjective. You can't write that into a contract."

"Okay, okay, what about this? Can you tell him to ignore anyone who comes with an injured pet or something?"

Shizuo shrugged. The fury was dying down quickly because of Celty's presence. "Maybe," he grunted. "But I don't want to keep a pet sphinx."

Shinra nodded understandingly. "I know, I know, but you understand that having somebody around to protect the animals is a really good thing, right?"

"...I guess."

"And if nothing else, sphinxes are very good at protecting things."

"...fine."

"Good. Then let's get that contract up and running, okay?"

Kida lifted his head curiously. "Contract? With Master?"

Shizuo felt sick. He hated that title enough when it was directed towards other people, but it was exponentially worse to be called 'Master' himself.

"That's right," Shinra said encouragingly.

Kida brightened. "_Awesome_."

Shinra's smile was so sincere and genuine that it was almost frightening. "Yep! No more playing house for you, kiddo. This is the big leagues!"

Kida looked at him and his eyes suddenly glittered. "Hey, are you the - "

"Shizuo-kun," Shinra interjected loudly, drowning out Kida's voice, "I'll take care of the contract. Don't worry, I've done this before. You can go see Izaya-kun."

Shizuo blinked.

"No, really, I got this!" He squeezed Kida's shoulder meaningfully as the sphinx gave him a confused look.

Shizuo turned to Celty. "Does he?"

She shrugged.

"Hey!" Shinra said, frowning. "Have a little faith in me."

"Should we?" Shizuo looked at Celty again, smirking. It wasn't often that he had the upper hand in a conversation with Shinra.

The Dullahan made a show of crossing her arms and looking thoughtful. Then she shrugged again.

"Nooooo, Celty, why have you forsaken me? And you too, Shizuo-kun – how could you be so cruel to your good friend Shinra? What a sad, sad world this is...all I ever did was try to heeeeelp, please forgive me! I don't even know what I did wrong, but please forgive me! Okay? Okay? Are we good? Are you still mad? I hope not...I'm a good person at heart, I swear!"

They looked at Shinra, fighting not to grin. Well, Shizuo was. Celty couldn't grin.

"What? Why aren't you saying anything? Are you still mad at me? Huh? Are you?" How the hell did his eyes get so big?

It started as a smirk, then it escalated into a chuckle...

"No one likes me," Shinra was pouting. He was so concentrated on self-pity that he was barely even looking at them anymore. "It's so sad! All my friends are so mean to me! They talk down to me and they don't trust me at all and...are you laughing? Why are you laughing?"

"Don't worry about it," Shizuo managed to gasp. Then he glanced at Kida and his good humor suddenly plummeted.

Celty was making consoling gestures in the air. When that wasn't enough, she got out her PDA and typed, 'It was a joke, Shinra.'

"Ce-e-e-e-elty that was a mean joke! I almost had a heart attack! I thought you were actually mad at me!"

"Hey, Shinra," he cut in, before the man could get back into his self-pitying persona, "Do me a favor – if you're going to make the contract, can you change his name?"

"My name?" Kida asked, baffled.

"Yeah."

Shinra frowned. "Why?"

"Yeah, why? I like my name."

Shizuo scowled. "Because that name is...because..." Because Kida, the real Kida, had been dead for years. But he wasn't about to say that.

The black haired doctor gave him a look of understanding. "I don't think that should be an issue, as long as Kida likes it."

"I do," the sphinx insisted.

Shizuo's scowl darkened. "Can't imagine why."

"Shizuo-kun," Shinra said gently. "You have to understand that sometimes the world looks very different from the outside looking in."

"Don't get all philosophical with me, Shinra." Shizuo paused before striding forward and ruffling Kida's hair. "Okay, fine, let's compromise. You can keep your first name, but I'll give you a second one, and that's the one I'll call you."

Kida scrunched his face up in thought, then he nodded. "Okay. What second name?"

Shizuo opened and closed his mouth a few times. He hadn't thought that far.

Shinra snickered quietly.

* * *

In the end Shinra told his friend to take Celty to see Izaya, because obviously they weren't getting anywhere with this whole second name business.

Shizuo had simply glared at him and marched out of the room, shadowed by an amused Dullahan.

He liked Celty, though – if there was anyone that he didn't mind talking to when he was angry, it was Celty. She was one of the few people who understood why he got so angry, and why he got so angry at himself for getting angry.

They walked companionably until she suddenly stopped him in the middle of the hallway and put her PDA in front of his face. 'Shinra's been worried about you.'

That got his attention. "Wait, why?"

'...I'm not sure. I was hoping you would know.'

Shizuo snorted. "No, but it's not like I've ever understood how his mind works."

'I see.'

"How do you know he's worried about me?"

'Well, I don't, not exactly, but he's at your clinic all the time and when he's not he won't stop fidgeting.'

"Dunno about the fidgeting, but he's probably hanging around to check on Izaya." Shizuo shrugged.

'Yes, I thought of that.'

"You don't think that's it?"

'I'm worried that it is.'

Shizuo frowned. "Wait, huh?"

'Shinra doesn't usually get involved with the supernatural, you know? He's a human doctor.'

"You got a point," Shizuo muttered, leaning against the wall. "Damn! I knew something was up when he brought that - "

She started typing, only to stop midway to hold him back from running back to the living room and shaking Shinra until he got some answers. He was flexing his fists and growling something unintelligible.

Celty thrust the PDA into his face again. 'Please don't do anything reckless. I'm still trying to get the whole story from Shinra.'

Shizuo shrugged her off. "Fine. But you let me know if he doesn't tell you." He cracked his knuckles.

There was quite a bit of hesitation before she showed him her next message. 'Can you keep an eye on him for me? Make sure he's safe?'

What kind of question was that? Shinra was one of the few friends he had left. Of course he would. "Yeah. Sure. No problem."

'Thank you,' she typed. 'So...Izaya?'

Shizuo realized that he had completely forgotten what they were there for. Somewhat embarrassed, he turned around and started for the bathroom. At the window, he paused and pointed Izaya out to her. "That's him." The siren didn't seem to notice them there.

Celty paused. 'What happened to your blinds?' she typed.

"Was trying to patch up a garden gnome. He wouldn't sit still so I wrecked a bunch of stuff while I was chasing him around. Had to destroy the blinds to get him off the windowsill."

'I see,' she said, but he knew her well enough to sense the scolding note in her words.

He grinned. "Yeah, I know. Probably shouldn't have done any of that."

'Probably not. How did a _garden gnome_ get onto such a tall windowsill?'

"I threw him."

'...I see,' she typed.

He gave her a somewhat sheepish look.

She shook her neck. 'So that's Izaya?'

"You've never seen him before?"

'No, no, I have, it's just...Shizuo, why is he in a swimming pool?'

"Long story."

'I see. And why is there a blanket in the pool with him?'

"Long story."

'Do I even need to ask why his hair's so short?'

"Oh, that – I gave him a haircut."

'Why?'

"Well...that...uh..."

'Long story?'

"...Yeah, long story."


End file.
